Gary Slossberg For LA City Council District 13

Every week I cull the newspapers, blogs, cable talk shows and radio blowhards for the latest crop of bad news on the economy. This week, there’s plenty to talk about. Last month, the unemployment rate hit 7.2%, up from 4.9% just a year ago. We’re on a pace to hit 10% by the end of the year.

Think about that: one in ten people without a job. And that doesn’t even count the people who have just given up, taken themselves out of the job market. These are people who have moved back in with their parents, tightened their belts as their households downgrade from two incomes to one, or hit the street or homeless shelters.

Just last week, Caterpillar announced it was eliminating 5,000 jobs; Home Depot said it would cut 2% of its workforce, or 7,000 jobs; Sprint, Texas Instruments and General Motors all sent out thousands of pink slips. Even Microsoft is letting 5,000 employees go.

Last year, the U.S. lost 2.6 million jobs. It could lose another 2 million in just the first half of 2009.

What can anyone do to fix this mess? After the inauguration, the satirical newspaper The Onion captured the present moment with its headline: “Black Man Gets Worst Job in the World.” Why would anyone want to take responsibility for this train wreck?

Well, luckily for President Obama, the entire weight of the problem will not be carried on his shoulders. Case in point: On a little stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard, in East Hollywood, between Vermont and Virgil, stands a clutch of small shops with handmade signs and a distinctly local clientele. Just this week – despite the news that consumer confidence is as low as it’s been since they began tracking these things in 1967 – a local entrepreneur opened up a small grocery store.

I walk past the place every day on my way to and from the subway. I watched, day after day, as workers laid tile, painted the walls, installed the light fixtures and, finally, stocked the shelves.

What an expression of hope and confidence this is. What a repudiation of fear and isolation. Circuit City may be closing its doors, but the Santa Monica Grocery is open for business.

This morning, as I walked past on my way to work, the store was open. Customers roamed the aisles looking for things they need: laundry detergent, eggs, milk, bread. Out of the corner of my eye, in my rush to make my train, I noticed a small sign in the storefront window: “Gary Slossberg for City Council.”

Ahhh … . Know hope.

Today marks a new beginning in America. So, just for today, I figured I would take a break from kvetching about the state of the economy and talk about the challenges we’ve been called to face together.

Sure, we have problems. Yesterday, Barack Obama said in his inaugural address:

“Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”

Not exactly a rosy scenario. The temptation is to tune it all out, to focus our energies inward or to look to Washington to solve our problems. It feels good to know that we have a new president, a new outlook a new set of hands at the wheel. But Barack Obama knows better than anyone else that he can’t do this alone. He can’t fix our economy, educate our children or make our City our country or our planet any more livable on his own.

Barack Obama knows this, not at the intellectual level, but at the experiential level. He’s experienced the power of grassroots organizing. He’s a product of the South Side of Chicago, where he cut his political teeth organizing communities to make things better for themselves.

Yesterday, strangers in elevators looked each other in the eye. Some nodded their heads in recognition of the other. Many openly expressed their optimism and their hope for the future.

All this in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression – a crisis so deep and far-reaching that no one can be sure where the bottom will be.

Where did all this hope come from? And will it last? Will the Obama bubble burst the second some new challenge comes around the bend? I don’t think so. What Obama understands better than any politician in generations is that people want to be challenged; people want to roll up their sleeves and pitch in; people want to be engaged.

But old habits die hard. Speaking to unnamed foreign leaders, Barack Obama said: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Was Obama speaking to our local leaders? Maybe not. But dissent can be silenced as effectively with apathy as it can with a clenched fist.

So take this opportunity to become engaged. Not just by reading the Op Ed pages of the New York Times, but by educating yourself about what’s happening in your own back yard. I’m not suggesting how you should cast your vote on March 3rd, but vote. In the last election, Eric Garcetti won with barely ten thousand votes out of more than 130,000 registered voters.

He ran unopposed.

Now is the time for boots on the ground. Obama will fail if this country simply turns on the TV and watches change happen from the comfort of its living rooms. We can’t all go to Washington to work for change. We can’t all go to Baghdad or Afghanistan or Palestine. But we can all walk out our own front doors, talk to our neighbors, take the Metro, go to a Neighborhood Council meeting and become engaged in our own lives. Don’t let this moment pass.

Melrose between Vermont and Normandie is again blacked-out at night. Normandie between Rosewood on the South and Monroe to the North is also blacked-out. Normandie just South of Melrose, is totally dark. These dark streets are unsafe for motorists and pedestrians.

My initial impression that people around here needed the neighborhood council to help them take ownership of their space has changed. People from all over the neighborhood are calling, emailing and inviting City agencies to meetings. Although it is dark on the streets of East Hollywood, I can now see that it is the City who needs to take more ownership of this neighborhood. Nearly 4 acres of prime East Hollywood land are being used to house city lamp posts for the rest of the city. How do we motivate our city servants to fix the installed street lights so that the good people trying to run businesses, plan ArtCycles, walk and drive the streets of their neighborhood can get on with their work?

~Jennifer Moran

This past weekend, I helped host a community tree event. The event was to do follow-up maintenance on trees we planted 10 months ago. Each time I do one of these events, I think about how it relates to community issues.

In case you are wondering, follow up tree-care is a vital step to ensuring trees make it in the urban environment, which is very difficult for trees. Also, the city does not have sufficient funding to maintain all the trees in the city. Someone has to ensure the trees planted actually make it. This is where the community comes in. Not only can they keep the closest eye on trees in their neighborhood, their participation helps the social health of the community.

During the event, I found myself conversing with other event volunteers about how wonderful it is to do tree care as a community event. Not only are community members invited to attend the event to check up on their street trees and to learn how to care for them, but when we work on the street, people cannot help but notice what we are doing. Sometimes they stop and join in the activity. Sometimes they stop to talk, find out more, and thank us for what we are doing. Sometimes they just look, but it probably gets them thinking. For everyone who participates, it builds a sense of belonging, responsibility, and connection to the people around us and to the streets on which we live.

We all know that the government cannot, and probably should not, do everything for us. The government extends only so far. In our city, it will pay for trees to be planted, but does not have the resources to take care of them all. At the same time, we notice social problems in our urban environments. What if we had well established systems of community participation where all residents actually did their part to contribute to improving the neighborhood, especially to compensate for lack of governmental resources/services? I think this would go a long way to improving social responsibility and connection in our neighborhoods. Could our City Council Representative do more to encourage this type of activity?

“I guess we won’t be having another kid this year,” my co-worker said, after the Governor announced that State offices would be shut down two days per month indefinitely, amounting to a ten percent pay cut for State workers. “At least we still have jobs.”

Everywhere I go, the fear of being cut loose in this economy hangs in the air. Unofficially, it appears that claims for unpaid wages are down. Workers are staying in jobs without pay, with the hope that when things turn around, they’ll still have a job to go to.

Fear is in the air. It’s palpable. Just scan the business pages of your favorite newspaper and the subtext of fear is behind every word.

• The U.S. lost half a million jobs in December as the jobless rate rose to a 16-year high.
• Housing starts are down 70% from two years ago, as lumber mills close up shop all over the country.
• The third largest bank in the country announced fourth-quarter losses of more than $10 billion – despite having received $45 billion in bailout money from the federal government since October.
• The collapse of the Stock Market has left pension funds underfunded by more than $400 billion dollars.
• LA Unified School District is set to lay off 2,300 teachers.
• The State of California is cutting grants to low and middle income College students, putting the possibility of a college education out of reach for those who need it most.

People can’t get money to build homes or buy cars. The State of California has announced that it may have to delay sending out tax refunds this year. Meanwhile, the people I know are hunkered down, waiting for the next piece of bad news and doing whatever it takes to hang on to their jobs in this bleak economy.

There is one group, however, who doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of fear: the political leaders of Los Angeles. Despite the bleak economic outlook, Antonio Villaraigosa raised more than $2.7 million dollars for his reelection campaign. Jack Weiss raised more than $350,000 in his bid to become City Attorney, and Wendy Gruel took in more than $650,000 for her campaign to replace Laura Chick as City Controller.

Here in Council District 13, the incumbent, Eric Garcetti, reports raising more than half a million dollars in 2008 – which just adds to his already bloated war chest.

All this political money means that the incumbent officeholders can afford to forego government matching funds. Why is that significant? Because government matching funds come with strings attached – like the requirement that the candidate actually debate his or her opponent.

Villaraigosa’s closest rival, trial lawyer Walter Moore, has raised about $127,000 this past year. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2005, and has significant support in his community. He wants to debate Villaraigosa, but the mayor has refused.

“We’re not going to debate Lyndon LaRouche either,” said Villaraigosa’s spokesman, comparing Moore to the perennial fringe candidate.

Oh yeah – and let ‘em eat cake.

But seriously, why should our political leaders debate their opponents? Because they owe it to their constituents? Because they should be able to defend their positions in a public forum if they expect to lead this City through these tough times? Because we live in a democracy?

Please.

Everyone knows it’s a sucker move to debate a hungry opponent when you’ve got a famous name and a fat war chest. Still, the people are demanding accountability. Gary Slossberg has called on Eric Garcetti to debate. Garcetti hasn’t seen fit to respond. Neighborhood Councils are demanding accountability.

As President of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, I hereby extend the invitation to Mr. Garcetti to engage in a public candidate’s forum which we will hold in East Hollywood. The 53,000 stakeholders of East Hollywood would love to hear what you have to say.

Posted by David Bell

All the locations mentioned below are within two blocks of each other.

There’s a cute Spanish style multiplex up the street from where I live. And it’s boarded up with plywood and a chain link fence. Sort of detracts from the charm.

Charmless Spanish Style employs City’s own Design Standards.

Maybe this sounds like a symptom of a bad economy. But that’s not it. It’s been left this way for 7 years. It’s owned by Ronald McDonald House. They bought it in along with 5 other residential lots up the street in order to build a bigger hotel for guests who bring their sick children to the nearby Children’s Hospital. They built the hotel but left this particular parcel of land to waste away. (RMH is a worthy organization and what I am attempting to demonstrate is in no way belittling the important role they serve to the families of sick children.)

Understandably, the residing neighbor on the North side of this property is not a big fan of the dilapidated building. She takes excellent care of her property. She and husband are constantly painting over gang tags next door and hearing trespassers rustling around inside the units. The residing neighbor on the south side of the property says he hears people in there too from time to time doing, “…God knows what”.

Craftsman copies styles from the City’s nearby Light Yard.

A block away sits another abandoned property; a charming, old craftsman house on Virgil. It’s been abandoned for years. I could see inside before they nailed boards onto the windows and doors. The inside was covered in tags. Another neighborhood council member informed me that it was being used by squatters for prostitution and drugs. Now this house has a 9-foot tall chain link fence that surrounds its perimeter. One of the sides of the fence has a gaping hole.

A block in the other direction is a vacant double sized lot on a small, residential street. It’s been vacant with a breached chain link fence for the past 7 years. It sits there taunting the children who play in the street because there is no nearby park. Less than a block away from that vacant lot, is the DWP’s light yard which looks similar to a vacant lot only it is less attractive. The city thought that historic route 66, right across the street from a Carnegie Library, in one of the most densely populated areas of Los Angeles would be a great place to store light posts for the rest of the city. Behind a 12 foot high, razor wire fence that is patrolled nightly by a security guard, sits the worst offender of all: the light yard owned by the City of Los Angeles.

If we can only hold landlords as accountable as we hold our own city agencies then I suppose things could get worse than they are now. It would be nice to think that property owners care about the community more than they do about their profits but this is not usually the case. But when the city’s own example of how to maintain property is such a hideous eyesore (located smack dab in the middle of 3 elementary schools no less), the standard for what everyone else needs to do to comply has been set. Why shouldn’t gangs and squatters look at this neighborhood and feel right at home. They can literally run recession proof businesses with no overhead and, at the same time blend in with the image the city puts forth in her own properties. Maybe the city’s plan is to attract all the crime to my neighborhood so it is more centralized.

As this week’s entries have made clear, there is a big gap between the rhetoric of Councilman Eric Garcetti and his actions while on the City Council.  From development to parks to fiscal responsibility, it’s evident that he is not being truly responsive to the community.

One shining example: For the past year, members of the East Hollywood community have complained about the vacant lot on Western and Carlton.  Although it is less than a block from Councilman Garcetti’s field office, it remained littered with trash and gang tagging.  Whenever residents contacted Garcetti’s office, they were told to contact the City, and the City would take care of.  Yet, after over a year, nothing was done to remedy the situation.

That was until one of the complaining residents brought her concern to one of the volunteers for my campaign.  My campaign contacted the City, arranged for the lot’s clean-up, and agreed to paint over any new graffitti that went up thereafter.

On both Saturday and Sunday, my campaign painted over fresh graffitti.  We then purchased a chain and lock to secure the gate to the lot in hopes of keeping away taggers.

As experience has shown, consistently painting over any new graffitti day after day is a great deterrent to tagging.  In many cases, the taggers evenutally realize that their efforts to tag that area are futile.  This morning as I walked to work, I was heartened to see that there was no more graffitti in the vacant lot.

It baffles me that what my campaign was able to accomplish with a few phone calls and persistence could not be accomplished by Garcetti’s office in over a year.  I understand that the demands of a Councilman are many, but if you are going to pride yourself on your reduction of graffitti in the community (as Garcetti does constantly through his newsletters), you may want to start by taking care of the graffitti that is right across the street from your Field Office.  I think this begs the simple question: Councilman Garcetti, when you make claims about your accomplishments for the community, are you telling us the truth?

Under the misguided stewardship of Councilman Eric Garcetti, Hollywood’s world re-known architectural and cultural legacy is being lost house by house, block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood. While the civic leaders of other historically significant Southern California cities have increasingly recognized the importance of strict developmental regulations to protect their communities, Councilman Eric Garcetti has instead actively encouraged the relaxation and outright elimination of many of Hollywood’s protective zoning regulations and community plan restrictions – laws that were specifically intended to protect his district from exactly the sort of inappropriate development that has sadly already destroyed much of Los Angeles’ storied past.

The elimination of Hollywood’s zoning protections, coupled with Garcetti’s often stated intent of transforming Hollywood into his own vision of a denser, more urbanized destination, has accelerated the destruction this famous community’s architecturally unique residential and commercial buildings, as well as Hollywood’s historical role as the epicenter of the entertainment industry. When it comes to Hollywood development, under Eric Garcetti zoning laws often do not apply, community input is pointedly ignored, and the consequences of inappropriate projects are often deemed irrelevant if they are even considered at all.

Millions of people come to Hollywood each year because of its legendary history. Nobody, however, comes to Hollywood for its future. Yet Eric Garcetti’s land-use policies are bulldozing Hollywood’s compelling history at an unprecedented rate to construct hideously ugly stucco boxes and ill-conceived, supergraphic-covered skyscrapers – buildings that can be found anywhere and offer nothing to Hollywood’s rich architectural and cultural past.

Unfortunately, however, the worst is yet to come. If Councilman Garcetti has his way, the Hollywood Community Plan now being updated by the City Planning Department will remove many of the meager zoning controls that residential and commercial areas currently have to protect against high-density, multi-storied boxes wiping out our few surviving moderate-density, livable neighborhoods and low-rise, walkable commercial zones. In their place, Garcetti envisions a Hollywood of high-density, high-rise residential buildings and billboard-covered skyscrapers. Such developments will have vastly more density than is currently allowed by the existing zoning laws, with dramatically less parking. The winners in this future Hollywood are developers, who can make much greater profit with considerably less investment (or with millions of dollars in direct taxpayer subsidies paid for by the City to encourage such development). The losers under this plan are you, the people who live and work in Hollywood, and all citizens of Los Angeles, who will be forced to pay for the improvements necessary to support massive densification that the existing infrastructure was never designed to handle. The losers will also include the thousands of low-income Hollywood residents whose affordable housing will be wiped out to make way for this new Hollywood, and who will be unable to afford the luxury housing constructed in its place.

In other words, Eric Garcetti has a vision for the future of Hollywood that doesn’t include the people who currently live and work here, people otherwise known as the constituents that he has sworn to serve. Eric Garcettii is therefore, in simple terms, a representative who refuses to represent us, and it is time for him to go.

In 1999, while Harry Markopolos was toiling as a lowly investment officer, Bernie Madoff (pronounced “made off,” as in “who made off with my retirement fund?”) was riding high as head of one of the most successful investment firms on Wall Street. The problem was Bernie Madoff was too successful. When Markopolos reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Madoff’s consistent profits were “mathematically impossible,” the agency snoozed.

Sixteen times, in response to some red flag or other, the watchdog agency “investigated” Madoff, and each time his operation was pronounced financially sound. The truth, of course, is that Bernie Madoff was using other people’s money to orchestrate the largest financial fraud in human history.

What happened to the experts, the people in charge of making sure things like this don’t happen? How is it that the very people charged with enforcing the prohibitions against such massive fraud couldn’t see it when it was laid out in front of them with mathematical precision?

The answer, of course, is that the government doesn’t care much about money until there’s suddenly none left. The doom and gloom is widespread in this economy, but nowhere is the problem looking more serious than at the level of state and local government. You know, those people who provide things like roads, schools and fire departments.

Several months ago, members of neighborhood councils from all over the City of Los Angeles were informed in hushed and solemn tones by the keepers of the local treasury that the City was some 400 million dollars in the hole. Our leaders needed help making some tough choices.

Let’s see, do we want parks or police? Fire protection or garbage pickup? Such tough choices in these times of economic uncertainty. Not so for our highly-paid City Council members: the highest paid in the country at a $171,648 a year.

And the City’s shortfall is peanuts compared to what the State of California is facing. Turns out – surprise! – the State budget gap is on track to reach $42 billion by 2010. Just last month, the State Controller announced that the government could “run out of money” by February.

Already the states are eyeing Washington for a bailout similar to the ones handed out to the financial and auto industries. Except this one’s going to cost some real money.

What happened to the experts? How come no one at the helm of the massive engines of government and finance could see this coming down the road and prepare? Sure, times are tough all over, but most of my friends are managing to keep their heads above water.

Why? Because the money we have in our personal budgets is our own, and it’s limited. We don’t have the luxury of telling the electric company that we’ll be “running out of money this February.” Barack Obama was on the news yesterday announcing that the government will be looking at trillions in dollars of debt for years to come.

The next big battle over our dwindling resources is going to be fought at the State and local government level. People like to say that government is the problem, not the solution. Well, what we have now is the result of a government that has been asleep at the wheel for an awfully long time.

David Bell, East Hollywood Neighborhood Council

Chief Bratton:
“The problem with LA is it’s a larger city geographically, but we only have 9,000 police here versus 38,000 in New York. As a result you have to police it much differently. Plus my serious crime problems are very significantly influenced by the gang problem. New York and Boston have nothing that approaches it in any serious form. They don’t have the routine drive-by shootings, the random shootings of people, people wearing the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood—the crime problem is a totally different beat.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-19/lapds-bratton-on-new-york-vs-la-crime/full/

Sunday afternoon, my mom, my fiancé, David, and I were putzing around the apartment while the sun was getting lower in the sky. So, I said, “Hey, wanna paint the wall behind our house?” (I’m an artist, I say these kinds of things.) “I called 311 two weeks earlier, but no one ever painted over the tagging back there.”
My fun-loving, naïve mom instantly said, “Yes.”

David was apprehensive. “It’s not all fun and games with these gangs, you know. They might not take too kindly to us painting over their tags.” Still, he reluctantly agreed, and schlepped about 20 cans of spray paint back to the alley.

As we approached the wall, I thought “Am I supposed to live in fear? Am I supposed to allow other people to paint on my wall? I’m an artist! I’ll paint on my own *&@^#% wall. That is the least I can do!”

I live with David and, he’s instilled certain fears into me. I scare him about keeping his credit score clean and he scares me about being safe. He used to be a federal law clerk, and worked on some very scary cases involving violent acts and murders being committed for frivolous reasons - or no reasons at all. Crimes committed against people who might be doing nothing more than, say, making a mural in the alley behind their building.

So, even though he’s planted a little fear in my heart, me, my 68-year-old mom, my man and my dogs all walk around the block into the alley wearing grubby clothes and holding spray paint cans in our paws – blue, silver, purple, green, gold, pink, turquoise, magenta, orange and we are abstractly painting peculiar shapes and designs into the LML gang tag that takes up over 18 sq. feet of our wall.

Five minutes into our adventure a man, carrying a suspicious looking beverage, comes from somewhere down the alley and sits down against the wall opposite ours. He says, “Mind if I watch? I don’t know how it’s done.”

My scaredy-cat button has already been pushed and I’m immediately wondering: is he a spy for the gang? Is he gonna tell on us? And make them get mad at us? He even says, “Oh the La Mirada Locos are gonna love you guys.” I can’t tell if he’s joking or what. I picture myself telling some killer: “We dunno what we’re doing. Just playing with paints. Me, my mom, my fiancé and my dogs. We’s just a bunch of dodo birds playing around. Don’t mind us mister.” As if that will help me somehow.

Now I’m nervous. I want to leave right away. Every car that comes down the alley might be a car with guns! I get even more nervous looking at what we’ve done. Have we just antagonized the gang bangers who live 2 doors down from us? WHY did we do this? What was I thinking? Let’s go! Get the Navajo white paint out of the garage! Roll over our antagonistic swirls, flowers and clouds! Hurry up - before they see it! I nervously trek back around the alley to the house to get the paint. I tell David he better take care of it (so I don’t get killed).

Ultimately, David compromises. By blocking out around the gang marks, leaving some and covering up others, the wall looks a little better than it did with the tagging but it also lacks artistic commitment. It just a confused and diffused wall, claimed and unclaimed so many times that it is beginning to look just like Hollywood Blvd. Hmmm.